My movie watch on 20 September 2023 was the Japanese live-action fantasy movie Death Note, based upon the eponymous manga comic book series by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata.
Directed by Shusuka Kaneko, and released by Warner Bros. Pictures (in 2006, Japan, and 2008, USA), Death Note stars Tatsuya Fujiwara as Light Yagami – an exceptionally intelligent Tokyo-based law student who secretly hacks into police computers and becomes very disillusioned when he discovers how many criminals are evading justice despite their crimes being known to the law.
Walking home one evening, Light is surprised to find a strange black notebook entitled Death Note lying on the ground, and is even more surprised to read on its opening page that anyone whose name is handwritten inside this notebook (and whose face is known) by whoever owns it will die less than a minute later. When he then watches a TV news report about a major criminal who is shown smirking after having escaped justice, Light decides to put the notebook's seemingly preposterous claim to the test, by writing inside it the name of this criminal, and whose face is visible to him in the TV report.
A few moments later, the news report abruptly announces that the criminal has suddenly suffered a fatal heart attack! The Death Note really does work!
Light duly decides to use it to secretly bring justice to the many miscreants worldwide who deserve to die for their crimes in his view, but without revealing himself as their vanquisher. Soon, the unknown vigilante assassin becomes the subject of immense public speculation, with the media dubbing him Kira (Killer), whereas law enforcement agencies worldwide, including Interpol and the FBI, pool their resources in a desperate attempt to identify and capture Kira, but all to no avail.
Finally, Japan's National Police Agency (led, ironically, by Light's very own but wholly unsuspecting father, Detective Superintendent Soichiro Yagami, played by Takeshi Kaga) concede that their only hope is to call in the world's leading private detective, a veritable Japanese Sherlock Holmes, but whose identity has always remained totally concealed, being known only as L and communicating with the outside world solely via computer and a trusted elderly right-hand man named Watari (Shunji Fujimura). Yet even L seems incapable of tracking down Kira (i.e. Light).
Consequently, in order to maintain official support to continue his investigations, L has to reveal himself to the Japanese police – and to everyone's great surprise he proves to be a somewhat scruffy, teenage social misfit (played by Kenichi Matsuyama). However, his brilliant analytical brain is unequalled, and refuses to rest until it has unmasked and captured Kira, thereby bringing to an end his increasingly cold-blooded murders of not just criminals but also anyone else who interferes with his callous, judgmental actions.
The remainder of Death Note presents a compelling series of intricate, tantalising cat and mouse interplays between Light/Kira and L, each seeking to out-manoeuvre the other. There is also a romantic sub-plot involving Light's girlfriend Shiori Akino (Yuu Kashii) that seems relatively lightweight and insignificant within the storyline – until it suddenly assumes a dramatic centre-stage role within the movie's shocking, wholly unexpected climax.
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Oh, and did I forget to mention Ryuk (CGI-rendered, but voiced by Nakamura Shidō II), the huge and thoroughly terrifying, bat-winged, phantom-like God of Death who dropped the Death Note book onto the ground in the first place? Shortly after Light finds it, Ryuk pays him a visit, tells him that he can keep it, and then stays around to observe how he uses it and how humanity in general functions, while conveniently remaining invisible to everyone but Light, whom he taunts incessantly, and exhibiting a near-insatiable craving for apples! (Hence the apple prominently illustrated on the front cover of my DVD.)
Roughly 2 hours long (and with my above summary of its extremely detailed plot being a necessarily profound simplification for reasons of limited space here), Death Note is a thoroughly fascinating, engrossing watch, especially for a lifelong Sherlockian aficionado like me, who revelled in looking out for any subtle clues that might reveal in advance the ever more devious and dastardly plans devised by each of the two lead characters, Light and L.
Their respective actors play their roles brilliantly throughout the movie, Fujiwara in particular, as we watch how Light is gradually but irreversibly, irredeemably corrupted by the god-like power that he now possesses to wield death remotely yet seemingly unstoppably, courtesy of the Death Note book.
My one issue was that the DVD of Death Note that I viewed was subtitled, rather than dubbed, into English. This meant that I was having to spend a fair amount of time with my eyes away from the on-screen action while reading the subtitles. This resulted in my missing certain brief but key occurrences that needed to be perceived in order to stay abreast of the complex plot's finer points.
I subsequently discovered, however, that an English-dubbed version of this movie also exists, and was both delighted and very grateful when longstanding Facebook friend Jerry Taylor kindly informed me that this version could be watched for free on the totally legal website Internet Archive. So too can its sequel, Death Note 2: The Last Name, also dubbed into English and again released in 2006. Consequently, I intend to watch both of these very soon – thanks very much for the heads-up, Jerry!
Also waiting to be watched by me is the first season of the animated TV version of Death Note, which I own on DVD, after which I may purchase Death Note 2 in DVD format to add to my collection, plus a third, spin-off movie, entitled L: Change The World (released in 2008), and a fourth, Death Note: Light Up The New World (released in 2016). In 2018, moreover, Netflix produced a live-action Death Note TV series. So, if I should choose to do so, there is plenty of viewing options in the Death Note universe to keep me occupied for some considerable time ahead – and not forgetting of course all of the original Death Note manga comics to read!
If you'd like to access an official English-subtitled trailer for Death Note, be sure to click here to watch one on YouTube – or click here to watch the entire movie free of charge and dubbed into English on Internet Archive. And click here to watch for free on Internet Archive the English-dubbed version of Death Note 2: The Last Name.
Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
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